It’s fascinating to watch these babies mature. They’re only 26 days old and the changes they’ve already undergone, while not breathtaking, are noticeable. Among many other things, they are learning to laugh.
They aren’t laughing at anything, well not anything that I can see or understand. They aren’t laughing at my funny facial expressions, or my absurd diaper changing dances. They aren’t laughing when green foamy poo comes shooting out their butts.
They’re laughing in their sleep. Not guffaws or knee slapping chortles, but subtle little chuckles accompanied by quaking spasms in their guts. It never lasts very long, only a second or two, at the most. It’s the most adorable thing in the world, seeing their tiny faces curl into grins as their bodies shake, and then three or four little squeals issue forth.
I wonder what could be making them laugh. They don’t have language as we know it. They don’t have any experiences that could lead them to reflect on something that was funny. They don’t appear to be ticklish yet. Nothing happened to them on the way to the Forum.
Maybe laughter is a reflex, a knee-jerk reaction that we, as humans, cannot avoid. Maybe the riddle of the Sphynx is evident here. Much like we begin and end our lives bald, small and wrinkled, we’ll all likely be laughing at nothing in particular in our final days as well.